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Thursday, December 28, 2017

Land, Holt!

Weird things occasionally come to mind when I’m on my morning walks.  Once, I imagined an animal family living in an unoccupied house on M Street, right down to an elderly squirrel reading the paper by lamp. Another time, I saw Christmas ornaments covering a bare tree.  And more than once, I’ve imagined the razor-thin outline of a new moon as God’s toenail clipping.  

Yeah, I know.

On a recent Sunday morning, under a noisy sky of freezing rain, I started to think of my body as a microhabitat and me as its land manager.  And it kind of made sense.

Think about it.  Our guts are home to trillions of microorganisms, harboring 500 species of flora, and that’s before I sit down with a skunky German beer.  While it’s not always fun living with all those microorganisms, it is thrilling to imagine the wild west atmosphere down there--tiny gunfights and feuds, sultry affairs and children born out of wedlock, and all of it happening just behind my belly button! 

This time of year, despite my better senses, I invariably ponder the need for a new sheriff in my town.  Someone who is more disciplined, a person less prone than me to sugar-coated cereals with plastic prizes crammed halfway down their cardboard maws. 

My land, after all, has expanded a bit, while my eyes aren’t as sharp as they once were.  And, despite notching 56 years on this earth, I don’t think I’ve become even slightly more discerning than I was when I was a 13-year-old kid obsessed with Space Food Sticks.

What do I do, then, with this land of mine?  Where do I put up fences to slow the erosive power of wayward winds?  How do I encourage the wetlands to take hold once again?  

As a land manager, I’m constantly pressured to find a balance between doctor-ordered pesticides and my more organic tracts, to say nothing of outside pressure to expand ecotourism opportunities.  I know, for instance, that I should clear the underbrush from my overgrown trails, but it’s so cold outside and I’m not good working hunched over for long periods of time.  Just typing this makes me verklempt. 

I’ve got all those microorganisms to consider, though.  They depend upon me to seek balance, to set aside and till in the proper proportions.  They need me to embrace diversity while keeping a wary eye on introduced species.

It is a massive job, managing one’s land.  And I’ll do it best only if I learn to love it completely--a hard task for a not-quite post-modern woman. 

So here’s to a new year of tending to me.  To embracing my biomes--from tundra to taiga, temperate forest to desert lands.  To loving my neighbors inside and outside my gut and learning, along the way, how to better tend to this greater world, as well.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

I Never Imagined. . .

"I never imagined . . . . "

How many times this year have my sentences started with those three words?  Well, basically, every morning that I picked up the newspaper. 

Who could have imagined all these dunderheaded politicians, the endless parade of  piggish men, such evil and rampant greed?  Who could have imagined so much rain, such horrendous fires, so many idiots drawing imaginary lines in the sand, as though this beautiful, precious life were some kind of a spitting contest?

Honestly, who could've imagined this world right now--at once aflame and under water? 

And yet . . . . 

. . . who could have imagined 8 million people from 81 countries walking out of their homes on Jan. 21 to gather with strangers in protest?

. . . who could have imagined 13,000 women expressing an interest in running for office?

. . . who could've imagined six transgendered Americans winning political seats this November?

. . . . who could've imagined Alabama voters--many of them black--saying "enough" to white men behaving badly?

. . . And, while it required no imagination among women to explain the tidal wave of #metoo moments, who'd have imagined the swiftness with which that testosteroned tide has begun to turn?

In my own small life, who could have imagined I would march for women and immigrants and science and education and aquifers?  Who could have imagined I would call and write and email Congressmen?  Who could have imagined I would wait 8 hours to talk with the Education Committee about charter schools?

When my tired and beaten imagination began failing me this year, it was in facts and faces, courageous stories and stunning push backs that I found myself once again imagining something new.  Something better than this.

As for the future?  I imagine a long-overdue revolution, much of it led by women.

I imagine that won't sit well with some . . . .

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Food For Thought

About a dozen years ago, Thanksgiving supplanted Fourth of July as my favorite holiday.  And that says a lot about the November event, considering I used to tap into the kids' college funds, come July 3rd.  

(Did you know that it's possible to flip a Burley filled with a young child, if you are riding your bike furiously enough towards the fireworks stand at Hinky Dinky?  I am not proud that I know this.)

Yeah, I needed a new favorite holiday, and, aside from Flag Day, I can't think of another that is more basic than Thanksgiving--cook, eat, nap, repeat.  Like shampooing, only more delicious.

Still, for about five minutes Monday, I cursed the holiday.  Four days and four iterations later,  I wasn't sure I could do the same bird, seventh verse, a little bit fatter, a little bit worse.  And yet, at lunch that day, I bemoaned the end of our beautiful brined bird, the last slivers of its savory breast tucked between two slices of bread, transfigured by a dollop of sriracha mayo.

Bird aside, though, what's best about Thanksgiving is eating with people I love.  And therein is the real lesson: if we are going to survive, we need to eat with people--at every moment possible.

If you have never worked in school, then you don't understand the importance of lunch in a work-free staff lounge.  It is a place to gather--gallows humor and silliness in hand--where our motley crew can take a breather, break some bread and say some stupid things, often without reference to the work day itself.

In that most magical space known as the East High lounge, I have peed myself--happily--because of something funny someone said.  There, during my 30-minute duty-free lunches, I have made prank phone calls, learned about fat quarters (look 'em up!), giggled at a corny pun and been moved by an original poem that my friend Linda wrote the weekend before.

Staff lounges and my dining room aren't the only spaces where we can be transformed, of course.

Just last night, in my neighbor Lisa's lovely home, several of us gathered to eat and drink and laugh and bemoan the things that break us.  We also celebrated the things that we have in common.  And all of it was framed with food.  . . . and maybe a little alcohol, if I'm honest.

Always, it seems, where food is present, there is laughter and love and coming together.  Maybe, then, the thing our country needs most right now is a plate of nachos and an open door, a place where we can gather and be glad for those who are in the room with us, framed in a glorious outline of dripping cheese and jalapenos. 

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Friendly Fire

I have often wondered--often in a state of wonder, if I may reuse a few words in this sentence--how I've ended up with so many great folks in my life.  Take the folks in this photo, for example.  And Cathy, the one who took the photo.  This photo represents the beginning of a fine chapter for me. . . although, when I recall its origin, it's possible it also kind of sounds like a bar joke.

"So, three chaplains and a school librarian are sitting in a Prius. . . "  Definitely, a small, independent movie, at best!

Anyway, that really happened.  And, boy, am I glad that it did.

Because my pal Jeanne (left) offered to drive me to the First Plymouth Church Women's Retreat at Spring Creek Prairie that morning a handful years ago,  I got to meet Jen Davidson (east of me) and Cathy Regush (now way north but then, behind the camera) and learn about thin spaces, to boot.

That said, it was a bit intimidating to realize that I was the only person in the car who wasn't a chaplain.  Unless Charlie counts. . .

Who knows?  Maybe it was an intervention and I'm just now realizing it.

Flash forward to this afternoon, when I attended Jen's most awesome ordination into the United Church of Christ (Midwest chapter).  And then back up into yesterday, when I ate pho with recently retired minister and current friend Nancy Erickson.

Yeah, any way you look at it, I'm keeping some pretty great company these days.  And they are definitely earning their keep.

But these holy rollers are hardly the end of my fortunate story.  I am surrounded by terrific friends and family--religious and irreligious, warts and all--each of whom makes my life infinitely richer.  To a person, they are stunningly tolerant of my annoying habits.  In addition to overlooking my outfits, my hair, my ill-timed laughs, they are also funny and smart and patient in a way that Job could not even imagine.

In a time when scanning the headlines feels dangerous and disheartening, it's good to remind ourselves of the peeps we've gathered into our corners, those patient, good, brave folks who call us "family" or "friend" and keep showing up, despite everything.

They are, it turns out, our superpower.  As for me?  I am swimming in wonder, woman.





Saturday, October 28, 2017

Ignoramus Rex

I'm not going to lie.

When I gave birth to Eric 25 years ago, I didn't know squat about how to be a parent.

The earliest example of my ignorance?  I had no idea that, if I chose cloth diapers, I should probably have a supply of plastic pants to back up that decision. 

After our second day home from the hospital (and the fourth load of laundry), our neighbors, the Buckners,  were kind enough to point out the obvious to us.

Their advice came straight from The Graduate:  

"One word:  Plastics!"

My God!  Their information was revelatory to our young family!  I should probably write them into our will. . . .

And that was just the first realization that I was ill-prepared for the job.

You know what, though?  Those dadgummed kids--Eric Carlson Holt and his punk sister, Allison Shepard Holt--thrived in spite of all our ignorance.  And that is something I find great comfort in.

For a thousand different reasons, it's good to remind myself that people are resilient, that good often bubbles up from bad, that people find a way to thrive, in spite of it all.

Certainly, my own lovely children are proof that we are not defined by our parents.  Or our leaders.

So, today, I focus on the loveliness that is Eric and Allison Holt .  I pinch myself as I consider those funny, steady, sparkly souls and the way that they hold so much hope for a good future, despite the sputtering, damp start that both faced so many years ago.

They are my finest homework, even if I kind of cheated to get the answers.



Sunday, October 22, 2017

Making Strides

A few weeks ago after school, I got a bad case of the giggles.  And by "bad" I mean "really good," of course.  A small group of us was reviewing our dancer names, devised by taking our first pet's name and adding it to the first street we lived on.   Yeah, it wasn't exactly curriculum-driven, but good lord, they were funny.

And that's when old Ginger Sunrise lost her cool and let loose a mighty snort.   It's also when my friend Helen said something that stuck with me.

"You haven't laughed that hard in a long time."  And she was right.  I hadn't.

Man, it felt good.

And it also felt . . . transformative.  As though I'd started to slough the strange skin of the past two years, all those months of death and disease.

It's nothing new, the idea that we can't see the forest through the trees.  But when I finally got to pull back a bit and enjoy the long view?  It was something to realize just how much of my vision I'd lost in the short term.

Looking back over the past two+ years, I think I did what I needed to do at the time.  I put my head down and worked my way through it--through Mary Kay's death and Andrea's death and Dick's death and my cancer diagnosis and then--the strangest feather in my cap--my mom's death. 

But I gotta say that I really like looking up again. 

This morning, when Finn and I headed to Holmes Lake, I secretly hoped that the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk wouldn't be underway when we got there.  For some reason, I didn't want to wear pink and walk with others, even if they'd gone on some version of this journey that I'm on.

I just wanted to be with my dog and enjoy the scenery.

I don't know if I've arrived at my post-cancer "every day is a gift" stage, but I do know that I'm laughing more and loving more and, sometimes, even roaring more, when the circumstances require it.

And I know that I'm lighter.  Happier.  More me than I've been in awhile.

Making Strides, you might say.







Saturday, October 14, 2017

Going to Pot

I'm a pretty simple person.  That's not a confession or an admission.  It's just a fact.  That's why I don't like to be busy or weighed down with needless things, like mascara or purses or motion-activated security lights. 

I understand that the world cares not a whit about my inclinations.  That's why, back in the fall of 1999, when I was standing in the Anderson Ford parking lot, I grudgingly made my peace with the fact that my "new" car (an early 90s Nissan Sentra) would have electric windows.  

". . . because every car has 'em," the salesman claimed.

Yeah, right. 

Pffft.

So, what in the name of all that is good and holy was I thinking last week, when I went onto Amazon (now referred to as "Damnazon") and bought myself a newfangled, highly computerized kitchen implement that would make Ron Popiel choke on a beautiful julienne fry?! And how on earth could a six-quart container need so much packaging?  

When I saw the box, which took up most of our living room, I poured myself a stiff drink and mumbled an apology to Mark, who, I'm sure, was calculating just how many guilt-free Ebay purchases this abomination would allow him to make. 

I poured myself another drink before I had the nerve to open the box.  It was like one of those Russian nesting dolls--box tucked inside box tucked inside box. . . .  Finally, our kitchen floor covered in cardboard and plastic and styrofoam, there it stood, the Instant Pot, taller than Finn by a hand.  And shinier, too.

My first mistake (actually, my second, if you are counting what I did on Damnazon--and you should) was picking up the literature.  Pages two and three were devoted to warnings--19 in all!  

It's possible I'd have poured a third drink, but the 19th warning was explicit--Put Down the Gin!

Three days and two-hours-on-Pinterest-that-I'll-never-get-back later, there's a pork butt and some ribs sitting in the fridge.  I still haven't touched the Instant Pot since cramming it into our cupboard, but this is all about the baby steps, people.  Or, more accurately, baby-back steps.  

Don't worry.  I'm off the gin.  It's clear that this thing will require a sober mind and kung-fu focus.  

Maybe I should have kept those boxes . . . . 

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Flying the Friendly Skies

This image hardly looks like a Painted Lady butterfly.  That's because it isn't.  Not exactly.  It's actually a radar image of our lovely visitors as they flew over Denver earlier this week.

. . . all 70 miles of them!

A typical Painted Lady is 3" wide.  Feather to feather, it would take about 21,000 of them to stretch across a mile.  And in  a 70-mile stretch?  About a million and a half, if they flew one deep.  

A few weeks ago, I was flipping out over the 200 I counted in our garden.  During those lovely layover days,  I couldn't get home from school fast enough--how many would I find today?!  And now I'm asked to imagine hundreds of millions of them, all catching a ride on the same wind! 

Please tell me that some little boy was stretched out on his back in a Denver park, looking up into the sky, tracing doggies out of clouds, only to find a wild, beautiful dragon arching its way across his view.

There are so many incomprehensible things in the world these days.  Things that hurt the head and the heart.  Things that can keep us from looking up.

And then, there is this--millions and millions of half-ounce creatures flying a 4,500-mile journey over mountains, through rains, across oceans and and and . . . .

This is exactly what I needed right now.  Something beautiful and mysterious that I cannot possibly comprehend.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Whatever Floats Your Boat

I did something unusual yesterday.  I spent an hour in a dark, salt-water filled tank, curious where the experience would take me.  True, it was warm and weird and kind of relaxing, but I wouldn't call it transformative.

This morning, I started my Sunday the way I usually do--walking around Holmes Lake with Finn.

My lake experience proved far richer than my time in its waterlogged, new-age cousin.

Just as we topped the dam, a plump, red sun peeked over the treetops, leaving a dappled sherbet shadow vibrating atop the lake's backwaters.   Finn ignored the light show, though, focused instead on the soft, padding shuffle of voles--sounds that were inaudible to me--as he leapt into the grasses, tail wagging and eyes and ears on full alert.  When we crossed the bridge, its girders lined with spiders and their webs, we set our sights on the dirt path that led uphill, away from the too-noisy gravel path.

Along the way, we saw a heron standing silently in the shallows.  We also flushed a noisy kingfisher from a pine, inspected the wildlife on a stand of goldenrod and chatted up a fisherman who couldn't quit smiling, because he'd just now set his bait for the morning.  I love the patience of fishermen and spiders, their lines awaiting an intersection of lives.

So, yeah, the usual beat out the unusual this weekend.  That doesn't mean I'll skip out on the two additional hours of soak time that I purchased yesterday.  I still hold out hope that there are worthwhile experiences to be had in that dark, watery tank.   But I'm not about to cancel my standing date with the lake, where my dog and I happily disappeared this morning, and let the world have at us.




Saturday, August 26, 2017

Feeling Wonder-Full

For some reason, when I woke this morning, I reached for last year's weekly calendar and thumbed through late July and early August, reading the two- or three-sentence reflections I'd written in each day's space.  As I read, what struck me wasn't the emergence of a cancer storyline so much as the steady presence of wonder.

Mixed in with all the MRIs, prognoses and appointments were lots of wonderful moments, marked in blue ink: "Just a beautiful, beautiful day. . . lovely day. . . a nice a.m. thunderstorm. . . beautiful sky. . .  great walk. . . a very nice first day back at school. . . cuddled with mom. . . Holmes Lake. . . Jamaica Trail. . . Branched Oak. . . laid on the patio and looked at the sky. . . enjoyed seeing neighbors on this beautiful day. . . the chrysalis became a monarch!"

I don't know why wonder is my steady companion but I welcome its company.

. . . which is why I welcomed everyone's eclipse stories this week.  Usually, wonder is a solitary experience, a moment of heightened awareness in which we are hugged by our surroundings.  That millions of us got hugged Monday afternoon felt like a tremendous gift and I couldn't get enough of it.  I'm not prone to tears, but I found myself welling up as I perused people's post-ecliptic Facebook musings.  Over and over, I read or listened to others' words of wonder and enjoyed a vicarious jolt of joy.

Boy, did we need a little wonder this week, eh?

And yet, witnessing the eclipse with my childhood friends--while truly awesome--was only one moment of wonder for me this week.  Thumbing through this year's calendar notes, I was reminded that I'd shimmered at least three times in the past week.

A few evenings ago, standing in a field of shoulder-high grasses--my fingers still sticky from ice cream--I happened upon a praying mantis as big as my hand.  I stared in awe while Allison and Mark backtracked to admire this beautiful creature with me. On our short drive back from East Campus, I had the strange sensation of my limbs floating above everything.

Again, Sunday morning, after a most violent night of storms, wonder found me, this time in Quinn Chapel, a small, mostly-black church on 9th Street.  Our church's women's board was spending the morning at Quinn, both at worship and at a lunch to follow.  There in the third pew,  Rev. Karla Cooper's words washed over me, painted in vibrant, staccatoed tones, and I was aglow.  The meal that followed was a gift, too.

I am so hungry to find a way through these times, to build bridges, to peel back the privilege of my own skin and rest under the cool shade of a tree with odd bedfellows.  The eclipse reminded me that, every so often, we get to do just that--to share wonder on a grand scale.  But the rest of my week? That's where I find the most hope--in those small moments of daily wonder when my eyes are opened and my heart lets in a little something that shifts me.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Whatever It Is, It Ain't Privilege

Forty-five years ago, I found the rock in this photo.  I love this otherwise unremarkable rock and the smooth finish my rock tumbler gave it. As a kid, I loved all kinds of rocks--still do.  And my prized rock tumbler, as they'd say in education, took my finds from good to great.

Rock tumblers are not for the impatient, though.  It took a month of waiting, a month of adding grit, a month of motion to transform this rock into its current, smooth iteration.

I'm pretty sure Donald Trump never owned a rock polisher. . . which is too bad, because the man could have used some grit in his early life, some opposing, outside force that required both his participation and his patience.

This, I've decided, is the bane of the so-called privileged. They lacked rock tumblers as kids.

I've been thinking a lot about privilege lately, mainly in the context of our president, who--on paper only--is a 70-year-old man. And I've come to believe that privilege is the wrong word for this thing that frames him.  Absence comes a little closer, I think.

As one of the very rich, Trump leads an insular life of immunity, moving through his days untouched by law or leper.   That absence of contact, though, comes with a cost, and it comes early.  What did he lose when his young life had no grit in it, nothing to move in opposition to his thoughts, his needs, his experiences?  I believe he lost the ability to connect with others and, as a result, he lost some of his own humanity.

And such absence--this gaping, gilded maw--does not a great leader make.






Saturday, August 5, 2017

Same Song, Second Verse

For the record, I was married on July 15, 1989. Not that I remembered the date when it rolled around this year.  But my forgetfulness had nothing to do with disinterest.  I'm nuts about Mark.  And Eric and Allison, as well. They are three major components in this awesome life of mine.

But, when I look at this photo--one taken just a year ago when we visited Rocky Mountain National Park--my emotions are complicated.  About three weeks after this photo was taken, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And about a month after that, my mom died.

So you can forgive me if this photo is difficult for me.  I look at it now, and I find myself saying "I had cancer then!  Did some part of me know that I was sick,  that I'd be radiated and motherless in two months?"

So, yeah, anniversaries have become. . . complicated for me. This year, they represent bookmarks that signify "Before" and "After," in really big ways.

But this year also marks my first anniversary with the Tribe.  Yeah, I'm in a tribe. And it is an extensive, powerful group that should not be trifled with.

So. Don't. Even.

When I was pregnant with Eric, I remember local journalist and mentor Betty Stevens telling me that, after giving birth, I would be forever changed.  That I would become part of some secret tribe.  And, sure enough, it happened, just as she said it would.  I am not the same person that I was before Eric was born.

Lo and behold, I joined another tribe after my diagnosis.

Same song, second verse.  A little bit louder and a little bit worse.

Just in the last three weeks, I've met with three awesome members of The Tribe.  One, an artist, painted a piece I'd hung in our house just a week before meeting her.  And she had bought my own mother's artwork a few months before that.

Isn't that strange?  And marvelous?  All these weird connections, seemingly made without either of us knowing. . . and I found myself wondering if some molecular part of us knew that we'd be meeting each other and had prepared for that meeting via artwork.

It boggles my mind, and makes me love this life even more.

That same day, I met with another friend, another member of the Tribe.  Over beers, we moved through shared stories of surgery and chemicals, light and pills until it was just . . . us.   Changed but the same.

And, yet again this morning, under a heavy sky, I met with MB, one more member of the Tribe. Over breakfast, we shared our stories and, at times, sat gape jawed, admiring the way so many circles had become concentric just when we needed them to touch us most.

That's the thing about the Tribe.  We speak the same language, even if we took different roads in learning it.  And I am so very grateful that I have found others who know these words, who recognize this thing that we share.

True, a year ago,  I may have known nothing about my future, sitting there at the lake's edge.

But it is equally true that I also know nothing about my future right now, here with my dog, sitting in my kitchen, waiting for Mark to come home.

That is the nature of this life, us sitting next to the unknown, smiling into a camera held by some stranger who, one day, might end up in our Tribe.

If only we can be so lucky.






Friday, July 21, 2017

Runnin' on Empty

A misanthrope walks into a bar . . . . 

There were far too many humans on my walk this morning.  Too many cars and trucks and buzzing chain saws.   Too much loud music from the boom box at the swimming pool.  And the three kids shooting baskets at the park (a surprising sight at 6:15 a.m.)?  Even they tested my patience.

For whatever the reason,  I could not seem to escape my species this morning.  And I really, really wanted to.

I blame Terry Tempest Williams.  Her damned book "The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks" has seeped into my veins and now I can't quit thinking about Big Bend National Park, a place Williams turned to when she was "seeking a different kind of circuitry, the nervous system of rivers and deserts and mountains born of fire."

Hey, I'm not anti-human.  More often than not, people fill me.

But nature?  Nature empties me.  And when I am emptied, all kinds of things have a chance to make their way inside.

We could all do with a little more emptying these days.  By chance or by habit, we Americans are overfull.  We take in too much news and eat too much food, we spend too much money on things and too many minutes on phones. It's as though we are scared of the pause, of the silence that punctuates the in-between.

When I spend time outdoors, away from people, other things move into the center of my narrative, and I wake up to the freshness of their stories.  I can't help but notice the bejeweled wings of the beetle at my feet and wonder what it was that stopped its heart.  Held by the eyes of a young rabbit, I stand still and imagine we are exchanging stories, telepathically.  Cooled by an early-morning breeze, I listen as it wends its way through the stand of pines I'm walking under.

Just writing about nature calms me.  In fact, the only thing I don't find calming about this blog entry so far is that I titled it after a song that I didn't like much the first time around!

Besides, the title isn't even accurate.

I'm not running on empty.  I'm running to it.


Friday, July 7, 2017

Cry Me a Rivulet

One of the most amazing things about Kauai was the way that new waterfalls would magically appear some mornings.  Birthed by overnight rains, they'd show up as thin, long fingers running between the ancient ridges of the mountains that abutted Hanalei Bay.  One morning, I counted eight of them, where there'd been just three the day before.  It was quite a way to start the day.

This morning, 3,834 miles from Hanalei Bay, I'm thinking about those new-born waterfalls and how they relate to me.  Although maybe an arroyo would be a better image for what's on my mind.

I've got a 10 a.m. mammogram this morning, which probably explains my off mood, as well as the feeling that there is a little river running through my brain that wasn't there the other day.

I forget, sometimes, that this whole cancer journey really is a journey and that I'm still on its road. It's tempting to think of it only in the past tense.  Surgery?  Check.  Radiation?  Check.  Pills?  Check.

After my Sept. 9 surgery, my daughter Allison asked if I no longer had cancer.  It was an excellent, strange question, one that I posed to three people.  My surgeon's nurse practitioner said a surgeon would say, post surgery, that I no longer had cancer.  My radiologist said he'd wait until after a month of treatments to consider making such a claim.  My oncologist said he'd like five years to pass until making such a claim.

All those experts, kind of disagreeing with each other.  It's no wonder that, on occasion, I'm aware of a rivulet of concern that runs through me.  Most days, I don't notice it.  But there are times when I realize that my brain, as well as my breast, has been changed by the news that came to me last August.   In those moments, that rivulet becomes something a little larger, a little harder to ignore.

One morning this spring, I realized I'd forgotten to take my Letrozole, the pill that keeps the estrogen-hungry cancer at bay.  Poof!  Rivulet becomes river!

Two nights ago, I could barely move, my joints aflame--a side effect of the Letrozole, which strips the body not only of estrogen but also of calcium and Vitamin D.  And there it was again, that occasional river, reminding me that I'm still on the journey.

And this morning's appointment?  It, too, has spawned the rebirth of that river, not in the form of tears, but in the form of a subtle reminder of the power of the "C" word.

Last week, my physical therapist (another expert, another reminder of the journey) said that radiation changes things at a molecular level.  She said that the tissue itself has been transformed by light.   Just like the rest of me, transformed by this weird combination of light and darkness, joy and journey.

And so, I try to make peace with this river, sitting on its banks and watching its many iterations, a new element in my landscape.




Monday, July 3, 2017

Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue. No, Really!

We Americans love a good who'da-thunk story, don't we?  In fact, I'd argue that this story form is at the base of this country's entire mythology.  So much of our flag-waving pride has roots in this belief that everyone, regardless of circumstance, can turn things around and surprise folks.

Six months ago, our current president became one of the latest, though far from greatest, who'da thunk story written on U.S. soil.

Hey, everyone makes mistakes. . . .

Here's the thing, though.  That whirling dervish in D.C. has generated all kinds of who'da-thunk spinoffs that represent what is truly best about people.


A year ago,  how many of us could have imagined that, on January 21st, millions of people worldwide--from Lincoln to London, Gatlinburg to Greenland--would gather in groups to take a stand for each other?

Who'da thunk?

Six months ago, how many of us would have thought that we'd start planning our evenings and weekends around protests or postcard-writing campaigns at the local pizza joint?

Who'da thunk!

Five months ago, I sat gape-jawed as I watched a spontaneous protest break out at LaGuardia Airport as anti-immigrant rhetoric butted heads with airplanes filled with people from everywhere.  There, in the airport, pockets of lawyers met with people who do not look like me, who wondered if they had a place here.  Outside the terminal, thousands held signs and uttered chants, in support of the melting pot.

Who'da thunk?

In January, National Parks employees pushed back against politics that threatened their livelihoods along with the well being of the parks, plants and animals they protect.  What erupted what a joyful noise--300,000 initial followers and the rebirth of Smoky the Bear in his finest version yet.

Who'da thunk? 
 
On the verge of another Fourth of July, one that I could easily talk myself out of celebrating, it's good to remind ourselves that, each day, there are innumerable iterations of the who'da-thunk tale--some tiny, some significant and some incredibly beautiful.   And to remember that, sometimes, the best ones have their roots in the most inexplicable head scratchers that we could imagine.  For me, that happened one morning last winter, on a day when the weird future started to make itself known to me.  It was on that day that I began to change, transformed by a who'da thunk story that I was lamenting.

It's good to remind ourselves that this country was formed by folks who pushed back, who thought we could do better.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

The Librarian and La Vida Loca

It was October, 2009.  I remember flying into Rome, the last leg of our first European adventure.  I looked out the airplane window at a land that was both familiar and foreign to me.  I'd had a night of strange, fuzzy half-sleep and was waking up in a place that was unknown to me.  It was an odd, dizzying feeling and I realized I'd better get myself together soon, because we were about to land, and I didn't know a lick of Italian.

I have had that same disorienting feeling these days, even though I'm writing this not two miles from my childhood home.  It is a strange thing when home feels like something far away.

In my most cynical moments, I hiss hateful laments at a bunch of rich white men in worsted suits who have not, as yet, brought out the best in me.  Yet, I continue looking for solutions, even though it seems I don't know the language just yet.

But I will learn it, because I sit on a secret stash, a powerful collection of bridges and bandaids, solvents and solutions.  I work in a library, after all, a place that, every single day,  lives up to its Latin roots--libre--and sets people free.  I know because I have seen it happen.

So, while my representatives in Washington--those henpecked, party-possessed, power-pleasing people who don't seem particularly interested in the poor or the passed over--play nice with a man who cares not a whit about peace or other people, I will flex every one of my secret-weapon muscles, reaching out to all of the "others" that I can find.  I will provide students tales that reflect their own lives, find them stories that connect them to folks who are not like them, and feed them books filled with ideas that expand their understanding of what it means to be a human.

I also will teach them how to sniff out poison and how to find gold.  And I will make sure they have somewhere simply to be--to hang with friends, to study for a test, to play a game of chess.

And--even if they don't live like, look like, think like or love like I do--I will be kind to every single person who walks into our library, regardless of what we have or do not have in common. I will love and celebrate them all--the acned, multi-colored, mysterious masses of almost-adults whom we so desperately need to be better than we are.

Because that is the way of the library, setting people free, one person, one story, at a time.



Friday, June 30, 2017

An Ode to the Firefly

The other night, Mark said I should blog about fireflies.  Fireflies?! Who wants to read about fireflies?

And then I realized that people desperately want to read about anything as long as it's not politics. So why not fireflies?

And he's right about the fireflies. For whatever reason, it's a particularly awesome year for them. The other night, after dinner at our friends' house, they gave us toothpicks to prop open our eyelids so that we might stay awake for a post-dinner, post-sunset walk through Trendwood Park.

By the time we got to the lower areas of the park, it was like we'd walked into a regional speed-dating event.  Seemingly thousands of randy male fireflies lit up the space, each trying to outdo the others with his pulsing behind.

Apparently, Trendwood Park is the place to be a firefly this year.

But our neighbor's yard is a close second.

I don't know if the Schwabs even realize their corner plot is an international airport for all things that fly and glow.  But I'm pretty sure they are curious as to why Mark and I keep standing on their sidewalk each evening, staring ga-ga eyed across their well-coifed lawn.   True, their lawn is impeccable.  But it's those fireflies that are calling us.

That beautiful photo above?  I took that last summer while attending a Firefly Count behind Sheridan Lutheran Church (A firefly event?  I'm guessing they're not Missouri Synod. . . ).  Before pretending we could count and identify the oodles of fireflies that live among the church's wetlands, we learned a bit about the insects.

Some intriguing facts:
•There are 2,000 species of fireflies, all of which are, in fact, beetles, not flies.
•The females usually watch the evening floor show from the ground, while the males of each species put on a light show specific to that species.
•One species, in the Great Smokies, is synchronous, meaning they pulse in unison, kind of like a when a household of women all have their. . . , oh, never mind.
Here's a video of them in action (the fireflies, that is): FIREFLIES IN THE SMOKIES
•Femme fatales from one species imitate the pulse of other species, luring in a hapless male from time to time in order to eat him.  Otherwise, scientists don't really know if adult fireflies eat much.
•Fireflies are bioluminescent from the egg on up.

Bottom line (because, when it comes to fireflies, it's always about the bottom)?  Fireflies make life better.  Way better, some days.  Don't believe me?  Look on Facebook during the evenings in early June.  People can't wait to share that they've seen the first firefly of the season.  Post something and you'll get a dozen happy responses. . . shared experiences, people longing to see one themselves, folks relishing this lovely symbol of summer.

Whatever our age, we all celebrate the arrival of these gentle companions that lope trustingly in the air, often resting on a fingertip along the way.  They are magical in the truest sense of the word--nudging the curious child from each of us, as we hold our collective breath and wait, transformed.



Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Time Travelers

Too often, it seems, we get lured into keeping track of things. A disheartening byproduct of taking that bait is that we end up doing things in order to get other things, rather than to just do things.

Our cell phones vibrate or ding and we ignore everything and everyone else to see what's on the other end.  Our walk or run isn't just a walk or a run because we're logging in steps and miles to earn another digital badge.  We skip ice cream with the family because we're over our daily calorie count.  We binge watch Netflix series so we can finish them before anyone else in our clan.

I like summer because I get to just do things--walk or read a book or take a nap or ride my bike or lay on the hammock and stare up into the sky. One of the first things I did this summer was to take off my FitBit and put it on a shelf.  I'd grown tired of counting things in order to get something--steps, time of day, hours allegedly slept--so I got rid of the bait for awhile.

A funny thing happened when I put the FitBit away.  I began to care and to not care in just the right proportions.  I cared that I was spending time with my dog on a trail, but I didn't care how many steps I got.  I cared that it was sunny outside but didn't care what time it was.  I cared that I got to sleep in a great bed but didn't care when I got out of it each morning.

And then, just when I thought it was impossible to care and not care any more, I went to Hawaii, where I waved my care/not care freak flag with great joy and abandon.  Not that it mattered if no one noticed . . . .

When we left our house at 5:15 a.m. on the first morning of our trip, I could not even fathom what lay before me.  I only knew that it would be a long, multi-legged journey and--frankly--I was glad for it.  If something is beyond comprehension, it makes sense that it'll take a while to get there.  So, I didn't mind the short hop to Denver.  Or the four-hour layover.  Or the seven-and-a-half hour flight.  I mostly didn't mind the molasses-slow line at Hertz, although I confess to wondering what the heck a Nissan Armada was and how on earth I could possibly drive a a car that holds eight people?!

I didn't mind the rain.  Or the slow, single highway that doesn't even go all the way around the island.  Or the rooster that woke me at 2:15 a.m. on our first night there.  And again, at 3:30 and 4.  I didn't mind the heat or the humidity.  The $9 loaf of bread was a shock, but--hey!--we had to eat, so I didn't mind that either.  Plus, the checker said I could get a Safeway card "like that!" so I signed up--even though I usually mind putting another card in my wallet--and saved $31 just like that!

I didn't mind having to work a bit to get to those glorious beaches.  And I worked hard not to mind my body in a swimsuit. By Day Two, I truly didn't mind if I walked into a store, my body caked in sand and salt, a baseball cap on my head and my wet suit clinging to my body. I didn't mind that we walked up a mud-covered jungle path, utterly filthy by the end.  Or that there were chickens roaming freely in the food shacks.  Heck, I didn't even mind going straight from a wet and wild boat ride in the ocean onto a plane, looking like a sunburned hobo.

Magically, all of that not caring somehow made room for more caring.  And I cared a great deal about many things on that island.  Its ever-changing skies.  The way the light transformed the mountains in front of me.  The way the rain made new waterfalls appear overnight.  I cared deeply for the way the people were open and friendly and unconcerned.  The beautiful landscape, the warm ocean waters, the joy of diving into a wave, the pleasure of sharing time with our adult children, who were gape-jawed as well. I cared deeply that my last "event" in Hawaii was skin diving at the same beach where some of Andrea's ashes had been scattered.  And I cared that Eric and Allison had found good, good people to have in their lives.  Just as I have.

In Hawaii, I cared and didn't care in equal measure, and it made all the difference in the world.  The nice thing is that  the same is true back home, where I will continue to care and not care in a way that I hope leaves me happier, more peaceful, more present in my days.



Sunday, May 14, 2017

Skywriting

I do not know if it is a gaping maw,
this place where once you lived.
My fingers trace a small,
scooped-out space,
walled in shadows and light,
and I wonder to myself--embarrassed--
Did you send the creamsicle clouds?
Did you rouse me with low thunder,  just to say 'hello'?

And then--just like that--the clouds turn wan again
Colorless canvasses clutching the hues of their former selves.

As I walk to the park this morning,
I cross into 1983 and I am at the Whitney again,
where I fall in love with Pollock and De Kooning.
Later, in its cafe, over a shared sandwich,
you sit, mesmerized by the dappled clouds that cover the walls.

For years, you come back to those clouds,
wondering how they did it,
those nameless artists who nudged the skies into a
concrete building.

This morning, under self-same clouds,
I think of you
and run my fingers along the edges of that soft space
that you once filled.







Saturday, April 22, 2017

How on Earth?!

Is it possible to look at those clouds and to think nothing?  To not wonder "How on earth?"

I've come to believe that "how on earth?" is the most important question in our vocabulary, one that drives and feeds, saves and fills us, often all at once.

Today at 3, I'll be retracing my earlier steps from the Women's March, this time in support of science, a field of study birthed from the question "How on earth?"   That it's also Earth Day is probably no coincidence, even if the realization just occurred to me this morning.

Two celebrations--one for science, one for nature.  To borrow a word understood by both, it's a perfect confluence.  Science, after all, is the flashlight we humans shine on this universe.  And, ironically, the more shadows we cast out, the more as-yet-unnamed shapes emerge.  To me, it is an irresistible, unimaginably beautiful relationship these two have developed.

This morning's walk with Finn was peppered with "how on earths?"  As is often the case, the trees were the first to catch my attention.  Tracing their outlines, many now softened with newly unfolding leaves, I wondered where in their limbs lived the life-giving knowledge of shape.  How did each know just how best to grow in order to soak up the most sun possible?  And what ancient vibrations were their roots listening to today, so that they might map a new, thirst-quenching route for this upcoming season?

There are a thousand things--silly and serious--that I'd like to see in person someday, each fueled by my own "how on earth?" utterings.  Cashews in their natural state, for instance.  Where are they housed--a bush, a tree, the ground?  Sure, I could Google it and have my answer.  But I want to be there, to see it with my own eyes.  And then, afterwards, I want to stop by a ramshackle stand at the end of the grove (is that what they're called?) to pick up a few in their more familiar state--naked, roasted, lightly sprinkled with Himalayan sea salt, thankyouverymuch.

I also want to swim in a sea of bioluminescent creatures.  To lay on my back August 21st and look up at the moon's umbra (a scientific word for "umbrella!") as it snuffs out the sun for a minute or two.  I want to be engulfed in the bending light show of an aurora borealis. To ask a house wren how it learns its songs, and to see its throat vibrate as it calls forth a mate or chastises a neighbor's cat.  I want to know how my body--this radical community of things that have never bothered to introduce themselves to me--how this body moves, how the blood flows, how the synapses fire, how it fights the cancers that invade it and heals itself afterwards.

 How on earth could science ever be construed as anti-God?  I have no patience for people who are put off or threatened by the questioning.  Pity?  Yes.  But no patience.

There is no growth, no wonder, where the big questions go unasked.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Mercy Me, Little Hound!

There's a yippy, mean mop of a dog on M Street that likes to scare the pants off Finn and me.  Yeah, I know.  Dogs don't wear pants, but you know what I mean.  In the past few months,  Finn and I finally have gotten wise to him and cross the street ahead of time, if I see his porch light on.

Today, though, we stayed the course, dog be damned.  Porch light ablaze, his shag-carpet body quavering at the ready, I did my best to ignore the slathering hound and his ear-piercing bravado.  For me, it was a lesson in mercy.  Better for me to forgive the dog its annoying dog-ness than to keep crossing the street or cursing it.

Lately, I seem to keep bumping into that word--mercy.

Just last night, I finished Bryan Stevenson's book "Just Mercy," a sobering account of this country's imbalanced, incapacitating practices of incarceration.  Largely devoid, in equal parts, of both justice and mercy, our country's prisons are brutally hard on people who are not rich, are not white, are not desired.  Stevenson, whose law practice focuses on these under-/over-represented people, wraps his mercy in the form of giving voice and compassion to this largely forgotten, often demonized population.

Stevenson's brand of mercy is not for sissies.  His is framed in a relentless, demanding and, at times, demoralizing pursuit of returning the elements of humanity to locked-up humans.  His work reminds me to reach across, especially to those whose voices too often go unheard.

Notions of mercy are also coming at me from Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico.  Action and contemplation--in the same sentence!  Isn't that a kick in the pants?!  My friend Scott recommended I pick up a copy of Rohr's "Falling Upward," a book that focuses on this second half of life I'm in.  Rohr's also got a daily email he sends out and today's was focused on--you guessed it--mercy.


In the email, I learned that the word mercy (a word that can feel quaint and awkward in these times) comes from the Etruscan merc--meaning "merchant or exchange."  In this context, then, mercy is a flow that requires openings on both ends--in giving and in receiving, which makes mercy the opposite of a power play because it distributes its power--its forgiveness--equally.

Just like the name Center for Action and Contemplation seems ironic, Stevenson's book title "Just Mercy" pits together seemingly opposite ideas--how can justice and mercy possibly coincide?  Doesn't one knock the legs out from the other?

Back to Rohr for a little perspective: "Every time God forgives us, God is saying his own rules don't matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us."  Wait, what?  God isn't the rule-obsessed, letter-of-the-law, don't-mix-your-materials titan of Old Testament fame?!

Mercy, it seems, is a rebel clothed in soft fabric.  A nudger that puts us in unfamiliar territory, a desire that causes us to question the rules, an act that flies in the face of authority and fills all while emptying none.

Mercy is me bending down at the little white fence on M Street so that I might pet the snarling beast.  I'm not there yet, but I'm getting closer. 

Monday, April 10, 2017

7:15 Sunday at Holmes Lake














7:15 Sunday at Holmes Lake


Sometimes, the grid is laid with gravel.
But, today, I want to be silent.
So I shift my feet off path, to soft soil,
my presence now muted.


Is it a denial of self to want to be absorbed by
everything around me?  
To long to lay down among the morning-light miscanthus
and look up?


Maybe it is something quite the opposite
--a blossoming of self in the presence of others.


Pressed against the warm earth, I disappear,
watching skeins of geese stretch above, noisily recalibrating.
My ears awaken, tickled by the chit-chit-chit-whirrrrr of red-winged blackbirds.
Agitated and full of sex, red-breasted robins circle,
swirling upward like angry dry leaves in the wind.


I am awash in this beautiful, this perfect science
--the audaciousness of a crab-apple blossom breaking through
--the sweet, iron-tinged scent of a rain cloud as it moves overhead
--the umber flash of fox, trolling for voles along the dam’s backside


I love my people, to be sure.  
But, some mornings, I love the wild world even more.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Heroes Just for One Day


Susan Sontag wrote "courage is as contagious as fear."

I have felt equal parts of both this year.  On levels both cellular and societal, my world has burbled and burst open, time and again.  And the resultant exposure has been intense.

Cancer and death, politics and personalities have made me both brave and bedraggled.   Often in the same day.  And these odd bookends end up blurring the good and ordinary things that exist between them, which sometimes leaves me feeling unanchored and isolated.

How is it that I have found my voice and lost it, too?

It is April and I have only written 7 of these.

It is April and I have seen Sandhills Cranes and the English Beat, the Gutenberg Bible and a Pileated Woodpecker.

It is April and our president announced his commitment to the coal industry.  While standing at the Environmental Protection Agency.  

It is April and I don't like what my cancer meds are doing to my body.

It is April and I am a 55-year-old woman, invisible to many, and empowered by that fact.  Nothing to lose.

It is April and the earth reminds me that it is hard work to nudge spring to life again.

It is April and the rains have slaked our thirst.

It is April and I am alive.

It is April and I shall be courageous.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Hope Springs, External

Those two folks on the left?  Yeah, they're pretty terrific.  And not just because they acted excited when we got them aprons for Christmas.   Honestly, if I were seeking some praise right now, I'd point to this photo--like, maybe a thousand times in a row--and say "I helped make them.  And you're welcome."

But something funny has happened to me in the past few months.  Maybe it was the cancer.  Or the weird pills.  Or my mom's death.  Or DT, though I'm loathe to give him credit for anything but the Tums in my cabinet.

Whatever the reason, I don't find myself needing as much praise as I used to desire.  I mean, it's not like I made a business of it, but I have always liked to keep the peace and, if possible, I like for people to think mostly positively about me at the end of the day.  But now?  Now, I'm okay if we have our differences.  And I might not even lose a lot of sleep if it turns out I've ticked off a person or two.  I've told myself this is a sign of real personal growth.

Back to those kids in the photo, though.   After all, I'm just retirement-in-waiting.  But they are the future, thank God.

Let's start with Eric Carlson Holt, the older--and hairier--one.

Eric, first of all, I'm sorry.  Dad and I knew crap when you were born.  I mean, two days after we took you home,  Paula Buckner had to gently tell us that the reason Dad was doing three loads of laundry a day was that we hadn't bought plastic pants to put over those cloth diapers.   So much for saving the earth!   But--to your credit--a few months later, Paula also said that you'd had too many Happy Meals. And that was true.  You were calm and steady and  joyful.  And--thank God!--you slept like a narcoleptic on Benadryl.

Given that I knew absolutely nothing about bringing a human into the world, you were the perfect person to learn on.

And now?

 Oh, my God.

You are creative and deep and smart and so very compassionate.  And I kind of feel bad that you became a teacher.  Not because you aren't good--you are very good.  But because you feel this world so intensely.  And teaching is such an intense job.  Sometimes, we worry that its intensity takes a toll on you.  I suppose that, in our own fumbling, inadequate ways, dad and I still want to protect you.

But we also want to set you free upon this earth.  Because you make it such an interesting and better place.

And your sister?   Yeah, we love Allison Shepard Holt deeply, too.

Allison, you and I share something in common that you may not have realized.  Because young spirits died before both of us came along, we share a template set in luck.  To be born of luck that is set upon the back of hardship is no small thing, believe me.

Beyond the luck that accompanies you, Dad and I are nuts about you.  I love the stupid things you and dad do together--I think it's awesome that you two have routines, interests and joys that you share.

Smart, diligent, and weirdly funny, we like seeing what you bring to this world.  We also like that you don't suffer fools. And--full disclosure--we're really glad you don't take a lot of naps any more.  Or at least that you don't take them at our house!

I am so happy, daughter,  that you love this earth as much as I do.  Who'da thunk such a beautiful woman wouldn't hesitate to hop into a creek or eat a bug, just to delight and horrify us?!

And dad and I love that you want to be a storyteller for a living.   You have learned how to use the tools of your trade to tell beautiful stories.  And believe me when I say that this world has never needed beautiful stories more than it needs them now.   So, go and tell them.  Hundreds of them, if you are up for the task.  And we are certain that you are.

As for the rest of you?  You're welcome.